16 procee:dings of the Pittsburgh meeting! 



he grew to love the country and its inhabitants. Long after his return 

 to America he kept in communication with many of his Japanese friends 

 and students, many of whom afterwards became well known men of sci- 

 ence. After a short time spent as an instructor in physiological botany 

 at Harvard University, he was appointed in 1882 as botanist and chemist 

 at the Houghton Farm Experiment Station, a position he held until his 

 appointment as professor of botany at McGill University, in 1883. 



The duties of his professorship brought him into close association with 

 Sir William Dawson, who was at that time principal of McGill Univer- 

 sity, and Professor Penhallow became an enthusiastic student of palaeo- 

 botany. In collaboration with Sir William Dawson he prepared and 

 published several papers dealing chiefly with the "Erian (Devonian) 

 plants from various parts of the world as well as with the Pleistocene 

 flora of Canada.'^ Then followed a long series of notes, articles, and 

 government reports by Doctor Penhallow himself. Some of these earlier 

 productions were the direct result of the study of problems which had 

 been suggested or brought to his attention by reason of his earlier in- 

 vestigations with Sir William Dawson, but on his own initiative he soon 

 began to break new ground. 



Among the most interesting of his earlier papers are descriptions of 

 the Nematophyton, or Nematophycus, as it was called by Carruthers. 

 In 1856 Sir William Dawson gave the name of Prototaxites to "large 

 masses of black silicified wood" which had been discovered by Sir William 

 Logan in the Devonian sandstones of Gaspe. His conclusions that the}* 

 were related to the modern group of Texas, and that "they may represent 

 a leading type of forest vegetation in the Silurian and early Devonian," 

 were disputed by Carruthers, who believed them to be gigantic fossil sea- 

 weeds. In 1888, after this fossil had been found to embrace a number 

 of distinct species and to be of quite widespread occurrence in Devonian 

 rocks. Doctor Penhallow confirmed the view advanced by Carruthers that 

 "this plant is in reality an Alga, and allied to the Laminaria of our mod- 

 ern flora." Likewise, his paper upon "The North American species of 

 Dadoxylon" is a scholarly treatise which, in so far as is known concern- 

 ing these plants, presents a clear conception of their true character and 

 relations. His lucid description of the manner in which some of the 

 marsh lands on the coast of New England have originated and developed 

 supports the conclusions of other observers that the eastern coast line of 

 North America is slowly subsiding. 



History, whether written upon the rocks or buried in forgotten vol- 

 umes, was particularly attractive to Professor Penhallow. He traced 

 each subject with which he busied himself as far back as accessible litera- 



